Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

The Jester’s Foot by Peg McLaughlin

I was hacking away at the multiflora rose hedge with a pair of debilitated clippers the morning Hal Benson returned to his home on the Cape.

He had junked the vintage Chevy with the scratches on the fins where his kids tested “gold” coins before he caught them at it. Or maybe it had been junked for him, come to think of it. His new set of wheels, a bright yellow VW bug, looked like a rolling halved lemon.

He hobbled down the unpaved track past my clippers and swung into his driveway without a glance my way. I snipped another thorny branch and did a quick mental scamper through my Emily Post. When a man comes home from months of treatment for a nervous breakdown, after a car smash killed his wife and two kids, what’s the neighborly thing to do? Is it too late for casseroles?

I had done the Samaritan bit right after the accident. Forsaking my thesis on Perkin Warbeck, I drove Hal’s sister Claudia out here to Padstow to clear his Cape house of memories. She was convinced the sight of Kelly’s dolls and JoJo’s tennis racket would send him into a tailspin. Neither of us realized then how deep Hal’s well of depression was. I’d nursed a guilty passion for my grandmother’s lanky neighbor in my teens; I suppose that trip was my tribute to a bittersweet memory.

You’d be amazed how much bric-a-brac kids leave behind when they’ve gone for the season — never mind for good. Claudia and Granny Cabral and I cried ourselves dry while we packed away three lives in neat cardboard boxes and arranged for storage. I babysat those kids every summer from the time they were toddlers — and little hellions they could be, to be honest — but they were only eleven and nine when it happened. Life’s stinking sometimes.

My current problem was, all that happened back in the depths of November, and here we were setting sail into May. In the interim I’d lost Gran, my oak post in the gale, and inherited her Cape house. In April, when I came into a tiny trust fund from a half-remembered godfather, I’d finally chucked poor old Perkin in a footlocker and settled out here on Cape Cod. I’d long since cried all my tears. I hoped Hal had, too.

Hal used the side entrance of his cottage. At least, I didn’t see him again, and the blinds in his kitchen twitched open.

Gran’s hedge looked as though Goliath the Rodent had been gnawing at it. High time I got my cousin Sam to sharpen those clippers; besides, I needed supplies. I straddled my aged ten-speed and popped the clippers in the rear basket.

Padstow, our local village, is a few sand-blasted buildings in search of an identity. Cape Cod stabs into the Atlantic like a jester’s foot, toe pointed north. We’re on the high arch of the foot, but you won’t find us on most maps. Our mail says Wellfleet, which is just around the curve of the harbor and popular, I can tell you. Better known and slicker, they suffer the full impact of tourism; we settle for glorious weather and a little peace. Padstow’s natives are descended from Portuguese fishermen; its summer families, like flocks of geese, migrate with the seasons, Boston to Bermuda to Padstow and back again. I’m a rare hybrid, half native, half goose, and move a little uneasily between the two worlds.

I was propping my bicycle against Dulcie’s Market when a blue Checker sedan slid to a halt beside me and Carly Whitehead leaned out.

“Hey, Tess, was that Hal Benson in that awful car?” she demanded through a cloud of cigarette smoke the color of her well-shaped hair. The curious faces of five Abyssinian cats peered around her shoulders.

I was used to that battery of eyes. You rarely saw Carly sans cats. “He just got in,” I admitted. “But—”

“Don’t worry.” She shoved a cat off her shoulder. “I’m not the Welcome Wagon. Did he speak?”

“To say what?” I asked, exasperated.

“Hello would be sufficient,” she said dryly, waving a cat’s whiskers away from her glowing cigarette, “or he might explain who those two drifters are who’ve camped in his boathouse.”

“What two—”

“Saw them yesterday evening, when I was fishing in my dinghy.” She grinned, pleased to be first with the news. “Looked like beach bums — backpacks and cutoffs. Seemed to be setting up house.”

Hal’s boathouse is around the point, out of sight of my place. It’s weathertight, but surely he could do better for visiting friends. If they were friends. If he knew.

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll ask him.”

“Just like to be sure,” Carly nodded. “Where’s your mom these days?”

“Cannes.” I bit off further comment.

“Saw where your dad’s schmoozing an earl’s daughter.” She grinned, inviting me to see the joke. Which I did, when I was in the right mood.

Joe Cabral had been Padstow’s auto mechanic when Mama seduced and married him to spite her snooty Brahmin family. They couldn’t retaliate much because she’d already inherited slices of two states from her grandmother. The Colorado chunk was near Vail, and the Texas bit, you’d better believe, was not just mesquite country. So Joe acquired champagne tastes, and Mama acquired me, then chucked him out for some peccadillo she’d never discuss. She must have paid him a wad for the divorce because Joe promptly took his new polish and his old charm and worked his way along the Social Register. He couldn’t go much higher than Mama, but an earl’s daughter might be a half-step up if you counted snob value. I hadn’t seen Joe in fifteen years.

“He was holding out for a princess, but they’re all under age,” I said deadpan.

Carly hooted, pleased at getting a rise out of me. Her car lurched, ground its gears, and purred away. She always was a rotten driver.

Cousin Sam Cabral, our mechanic now that Joe had bigger fish to fry, pronounced my hedge clippers terminal and sold me an almost new pair a summer visitor had abandoned. To my question, he nodded.

“Sure. Two guys on scooters. Night before last. Didn’t ask directions.” His seamed face showed no curiosity. Sam preferred machines to people.

I worked my way through the breadline at Dulcie’s, then cruised homeward. The Carlisles had arrived, I noted, and Deenie Durham’s Jag was in her drive. Since it was Tuesday, they’d probably be here for the week. Maybe that clambake on Friday wouldn’t be a complete bust after all.

I coasted to a stop at Hal’s picket fence, feeling a mite shaky. The worst thing about a small town is sometimes you get tapped as designated busybody. Neighborhood Watches have nothing on us. Today, of all days, had to be my turn.

When Hal swung the door open at my second rap, he startled me because aside from his pallor, he looked the same as ever: long, bony face, hazel eyes, thick lashes, floppy fair hair. I’m five foot eight, but he topped me by half a foot. I took a step back to ease the crick in my neck.

“Sorry to bug you while you’re settling in, Hal,” I said, brisk and chatty, “but Carly — I heard there were some boys in your boathouse—”

“They work with me,” he said flatly, baritone a little husky. From disuse? “Don’t let them worry you.”

“I bought some extra bread and—” The door, which was swinging shut, paused and reopened.

“I bought supplies on the way.” Hal being patient is something to back off from. I backed another step. “I expected some privacy here. Why aren’t you on the Riviera with your mother?”

I didn’t see why I should be held responsible by all and sundry for my delinquent parents. “I’m slumming,” I retorted and swung on my heel. The door clicked shut before I hit the porch steps.

I flounced home, tugging my bike, and took my irritation out on the multiflora rose. The edge of those new clippers made mincemeat of half the hedge before I cooled off.

I pedaled over to the Yacht Club for dinner. Actually, it’s just a big gingerbread house with a flagstone terrace, sloping lawn, and narrow beach, donated to Padstow by Emily Beale, a wealthy old harridan who hated her relatives. On her deathbed, she willed everything else to the Old Seaman’s Home — and did they have a party!

“Tess, baby! Come on over!” Deenie Durham, seated at one of the ironwork tables on the terrace, raised her martini in greeting.

I settled beside her, feeling, as usual, like a giantess. Deana Durham is a gorgeous elf, dainty as a porcelain teacup.

“Where’s Sandy?” I asked, signaling for Raoul, the waiter — another cousin.

“Slaving in his rotten laboratory, I hope,” she said viciously, taking a long pull at her martini. A marble-sized diamond on her finger flashed. “Just because some computer jockey snuffed himself—”

“Who snuffed himself?” Carly asked, plumping herself down beside us. “Anybody I know?”

“You smell!” Deenie cried, edging toward me. A whiff of breeze hit me, and I coughed at the pungent odor of mothballs pouring off Carly’s dress.

“Like it?” she asked archly, fingering the layers of mauve lace over brocade. “Lady from Provincetown found it in an old trunk and asked me to repair the lace. Turned out so nice, I thought I’d air it out.”

“Well, air it downwind of me,” Deenie choked.

Carly shrugged and shifted to a chair down-breeze of us. Raoul caught her scent and stumbled slightly as he brought my glass of wine. Carly’s business placard read, “Seamstress and Sailmaker” — and she wasn’t kidding. She claimed sails “just take bigger stitches.”

Carly ordered scotch. “Who died, Deenie? And why are you breathing fire about it?”

Deenie raised her delicate chin in a pout. “Sid Schneider, a kid who worked at Sandy’s lab. He went up to our cabin in the Berkshires last weekend and hanged himself from the rafters. Ugh! I’ll never set foot in the place again.”

“Why your cabin?” I asked.

“Oh, he had some grudge against Sandy,” Deenie said vaguely. “But why pick on me? I’d never set eyes on the twerp. That doesn’t stop those dolts from security, asking their nosy questions and pawing my belongings. I finally came over here to get away from them.”

“The lab handled government projects,” Carly commented.

Deenie grimaced. “Sandy says they think this creep was selling the lab’s computer programs. That’s all they know! Maybe he found out they were suspicious and decided to take the easy way out. But my precious husband,” she almost chewed the words, “is not utterly irreplaceable. He can’t possibly spare a few days to spend with me.”

“Drowning your sorrows will only add a headache.” Carly patted her hand. “Now Hal’s here, maybe—”

“Hal’s here?” Deenie demanded.

“What’s he got to do with it?” I chorused.

“Hal is — or was — the ringleader of this asinine, super-secret computer team,” Deenie explained impatiently. “Sandy only took over after Sharon’s accident, and I’ve hardly set eyes on him since. They’ve been expecting Hal back for months. And he has the nerve—”

“Hal’s a professor at M.I.T.,” I said stupidly. Claudia hadn’t mentioned any job change when we were clearing Hal’s house, but we hadn’t talked much, come to think of it.

Carly shook her head sorrowfully. “All those years at school really pruned you off the local grapevine, Tess. Hal moved to the laboratory more than a year ago. Said he needed to earn some real money for—”

“Well, I have a few choice words—” Deenie began, rising.

Carly yanked her back. “You, my girl, are going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and let that poor man alone,” she said in a low voice that carried command. “It wasn’t a sprained ankle that took all these months to heal, it was a mind.”

Deenie subsided, rubbing her wrist. “Why did he have to go all dramatic when Sharon died?” she muttered. “They’d been on the outs for more than a year before it happened. She was shopping for a house for her and the kids—”

“Deenie!” I gasped.

“You didn’t know, wrapped up in your books,” she spat. “Hal was just like Sandy — always working. Sharon was fed up.”

“Sharon wasn’t all he lost, Deenie.” Carly was looking daggers at her friend. “Don’t take your personal problems out on Hal.”

“Fat chance I’ll have,” Deenie shrugged, shedding the martini-induced nastiness with her usual mercurial shift of mood. “He knows Sharon told me everything,” she smirked. “He’ll steer clear of me.”

“He made it glaringly obvious that he wants to pull a Garbo when I stopped by this afternoon,” I agreed, sitting back now that the tension had eased. “By the way, Carly, Hal says he knows those two are using his boathouse.”

Carly shrugged as she lit a cigarette. “Better safe than sorry.”

I was gardening in my back yard the next morning when Hal’s beach bum pals slouched up the path from the boathouse and inspected the tool shed at the bottom of the Benson garden. Sharon had been a fiend for flowers; that shed contained every tool imaginable. Gran used to borrow from her shamelessly, which explained the dull clippers and two rusty trowels I found in our own toolroom.

The men were a mismatched set: both medium brown of hair and skin, clad in T-shirts and cutoffs, but one tall and thin, the other short and blocky. Mutt and Jeff to the life, I thought. They sniffed around inside the shed a few minutes. Hal had said they were guests, so I held my tongue; but those two had never learned company manners, I can tell you. They finally strolled east toward the Atlantic beach. I lost interest, enthralled with cutting back Gran’s clematis, which had gotten above itself and was trying to eat the back porch.

I was parched by eleven o’clock and decamped to the house for some “shade and ’ade.” When I came out later, the air was stifling and the sun glittered on the harbor where a sailboat lay becalmed. Winter storms had tumbled some small boulders into the bed of Gran’s rock garden. Despite repeated tries, neither my fingers nor the trowel could shift them. Blast! I’d have to borrow a spade from Hal.

I flicked a glance at his house. No movement at the back windows. He need never know. Wiping dirt from my palms, I strode to a break in the hedge and headed for the rich lode of that tool shed. The door was ajar; the bums evidently didn’t care who knew they’d been snooping. With another guilty glance at the blank windows of Hal’s house, I slipped inside the shed.

The interior was as dim as a mineshaft after the sunlight. Still glare-blinded, I sensed movement and ducked instinctively as something whistled past my ear. The door banged back on its hinges with the missile’s impact, spearing the gloom with a swatch of light. A bulky shadow in the corner was rearing to its feet as the light hit it. It materialized into a surprised man — but where a face could reasonably be expected, there was just a blurred outline smeared by a stocking mask. In his left paw was a long-barreled handgun.

You can’t run fast enough to beat bullets. I leaped to my left, where the tool racks stood, and grasped the nearest handle. In one smooth motion, powered by amazement and rage, I wrenched it free, twisted my whole body with the spade flailing, and let fly at the man’s head as he straightened.

It would have taken his head off if he’d been my height. As it was, the point of the flying spade hit him in the sternum with an audible thunk. Something kicked up a spout of dirt at my feet as he grunted and clutched at his chest, dropping the gun. The spade had hardly left my hand when I was grasping the next handle on the rack.

It was just as well I took no chances because the intruder was built like a bison and that first blow had only doubled him over. He was still on his feet, staggering toward me, mouth gasping horribly through the nylon. I swung the metal rake hard, prongs out, and caught him a blow on the shoulder that jarred me clear down to my sacroiliac. I was lifting it for a jab when, with a guttural curse, he dodged out the door and slammed it behind me.

In the plunging dark, I flung the rake down and dived toward the far corner. Landing on my knees, I patted desperately along the dirt floor for the gun, adrenaline pumping like a waterspout. My hand hit something covered with cloth, glanced off, froze, then crept back in slow motion. It was a leg.

I staggered to my feet and backpedaled until I came up against the door. Fumbling for the latch, I lurched out into the garden. I did have wits enough left to glance around first, but the bull had escaped that particular china shop. A small runabout carrying two people was arrowing toward the becalmed sailboat. I stared after it, delaying examination of what the bull had left behind.

Taking a deep breath — my first in minutes, it seemed — and quaking like an aspen, I propped the door open and turned to assess the damage. In the moted oblong of sunlight I could see two ankles bound by rope. One large stocking sported a hole in the heel. I knew there was an overhead light, but I was too rattled to find the switch. After a couple of fumbles along the left-hand wall, I gave it up and approached the bound feet.

The toes wriggled. I nearly jumped out of my own socks. Then I was on my knees, dragging the bound man to a sitting position — with little assistance from him, he was too busy groaning. It was Hal, masquerading as Billy the Kid. A bandana was tied across the lower half of his face, and his hands were tied behind him. I braced him back against the workbench and scrabbled for some scissors.

Scissors may cut paper, but I can testify they make little headway against whatever they’re making rope of these days. My brain finally clicked into gear, and I sprinted back to my own yard. Hal was coming around by the time I returned. When he saw me advancing on him, hedge clippers at the ready, his eyes showed a lot of white.

I snipped through the leg bindings first, then edged around to get at his back. He was awake enough by then to stretch his hands well away from his body; with his mouth still covered, I couldn’t hear his prayers. When the rope fell off, I undid the bandana for him. Beneath it was a strip of adhesive tape. Hal dealt with that himself while I slumped beside him and ordered myself to stop trembling.

That was when I noticed something really odd. Not that finding your neighbor tied up in his own tool shed isn’t odd, mind you, but this was, frankly, bizarre. Hal was chafing his wrist and noticed it at the same time. Someone had stripped a yard of insulation from the business end of a power cable and coiled the exposed copper wire four times around Hal’s upper arm. Our eyes followed the thick cord up to where it dangled from a socket in the ceiling. The same socket that operated the overhead light — which I had been trying to turn on minutes before.

“Get it off!” I muttered through clenched teeth, but Hal was already ripping the device off his arm. He gave a stiff downward yank and the cord slithered to the floor like a dying rattler. We sat in silence, staring at it, our feet poked out into the sunlight.

“Shoes,” Hal finally croaked.

I found the light switch this time, although I hesitated before flipping it. A brief search turned up his rubber-soled shoes under the workbench. The gun was there, too, but I left it. Hal donned his shoes, staggered to his feet unassisted, then flexed his shoulders — or maybe it was a shudder.

“Drink,” he said, walking very deliberately toward the door.

I couldn’t agree more.

Hal excused himself while I poured brandy into paper cups, which was all I could find in his kitchen. When he returned to his dining room, he was decidedly paler. He downed his “juice” and held the glass out for more.

I poured liberally but asked, “Should you drink?”

“It was chloroform,” he said wearily, flopping down in a captain’s chair. “No concussion.”

I made inroads on my own drink, a slow burn down to the heart.

Hal finally took a great breath, released it, and looked across the mahogany table at me. “What happened out there?”

I ’fessed up to my plan to plunder his tools and described the ensuing struggle. No, I told him, I’d never seen the man before. I’d have remembered anyone with shoulders that size. One of which should be stiffening up nicely, I thought, but I didn’t want to brag.

“I was thinking about buying a guard dog,” Hal said when I finished. “I may adopt you instead.” He smiled down at his drink, but the humor was a little sour around the edges.

A knock on the back door made us both jump like scalded cats. I listened intently as Hal went to answer it. A jumble of male voices, then he returned followed by his boathouse guests. Close up they looked less like the Hardy boys and more like fighters in training, young bodies with cynical eyes.

“Mutt and Jeff think we’ve been hallucinating,” Hal said, showing them in.

“Mutt and—” I swallowed a giggle. “Bodyguards?” I asked brightly, to be met by fish eyes. “Or just guards?” less brightly.

“We’re just — observers,” said Mutt.

“And what were you observing fifteen minutes ago?” I demanded acidly.

“A boy almost drowned—” He had the grace to redden.

“You claim you saw the, uh, attacker?” Jeff drawled.

“A tall man, beefy shoulders, square face, wearing a stocking mask,” I recited impatiently. I glanced out the window. “The boat’s gone. You’ll find his gun in the shed.”

“Weird way to do anybody in,” suggested Mutt.

“Inefficient,” agreed Jeff.

“And not even original,” I finished.

Jeff’s eyes were unfriendly. “Elucidate, lady.”

Hal was scowling at the table and gave me no encouragement “At the club last night Deenie Durham told me a computer programmer from her husband’s lab hanged himself at their mountain cabin,” I finally said, watching the odd twosome and wondering where they fit in. “It reminded me of a story I read awhile back about a number of British scientists who’d committed suicide or died in questionable accidents.”

“Go on.” He leaned tanned knuckles against the table.

I shrugged. “That setup in the shed, plugging Hal into the electrical circuit — it was exactly like one of those so-called suicides.”

Hal’s face looked like unleavened dough, destined never to rise. While Jeff turned to confer with his colleague, he rounded the table and leaned against the wall beside my chair.

“You always were the nosiest kid,” he muttered. Which ungrateful comment left me, finally, speechless.

For their own reasons, Hal and his two “guests” refused to report the attack. Admittedly, Zeke Beebe, our lone policeman, is stretched to handle fender benders; he’d probably have had apoplexy if he heard our story. Besides, the sailboat in which the bull escaped wasn’t local; ditto the bull himself. Not really worth the energy it would take to pursue, Mutt decided. Jeff looked grave, and Hal took another drink. I was not consulted.

Mutt and Jeff eventually retired to the boathouse, leaving Hal and me staring at each other.

“Are you expecting any further visitations?” I finally asked. “Can I work in my garden unarmed?”

Hal grimaced and shoved the hair back from his forehead. “I can’t say—”

“—what’s going on,” I finished in disgust. “Well, my analysis,” I said, standing and stretching, “is that either you are under suspicion of something heinous, or you’ve been staked out as a Judas goat by those two morons. As the goat’s next door neighbor, I’d like to register a protest. You might make that dog a mastiff.”

I banged the screen door hard and stomped back to my immovable rocks. They reminded me of my neighbor.

All was quiet on the western front of the Cape for the next two days. I puttered around the house making notes of jobs Uncle Ernando could repair at special family rates. Carly called once, asking what had sent Deenie to the bottle — which was news to me. I put her off, then thought it over and gave Deenie a ring.

“Oh, Tess, I can’t stop now.” Deenie sounded breathless. “Look, come by on the way to the clambake. We’ll talk.” And she was gone. Seemed perfectly normal to me.

I kept one wary eye cocked toward the Benson property, but Hal never left the house. His guests were equally discreet.

I donned a sweatshirt and shorts for the Friday afternoon clambake at the Yacht Club and hiked over to the Durhams’. The curtains were drawn, and there was no response to my repeated knocks, although Deenie’s car was in the drive. But knowing her, she might have forgotten me and walked the short distance to the club. I had given up and was retrieving my bicycle when a front curtain twitched. I paused, waiting for Deenie to come bustling out in her usual attempt to catch up with time, but the fabric stilled and the door remained unopened. After a minute’s frowning hesitation, I pushed off for the club.

Carly, in painter’s pants and shocking pink sweatshirt, was seated crosslegged on the club’s lawn milking advice from Reg Dooley, our local veterinarian. Her cats were absent, a club rule since the day one of them seized Mrs. Farmington’s lobster from under her shrieking nose and made itself sick on the subsequent feast. Carly now locked them in the Members’ Library when she attended club functions. I plopped myself down on the grass and asked if she had seen Deenie yet.

“Not a sign,” she said, and paused for a pull at her cold beer, “but she’s never on time. Why?” Reg excused himself, sensing one of those female conversations that real men avoid. “Man can only discuss one subject,” Carly said speculatively, staring after his retreating back.

“Carly,” I insisted, “I stopped by Deenie’s. Someone peeked through the curtain, but nobody answered the door. Is something bothering her?”

Carly pulled an earlobe. “You heard her. She’s been wailing at the top of her lungs for Sandy to come and pay attention to poor little her. Maybe she’s—”

“But she planned to come to the clambake.” I accepted a beer from Raoul as he made the rounds.

“Far as I know, she was looking forward to it,” Carly said idly, eyes on the harbor, then glanced at me sharply. “For pity’s sake, Tess, you’re as jumpy as a cat on a hot griddle. She probably decided to stay home with—”

Carly’s mouth fell open in mid-thought. I swung around, beer slopping, to see Hal strolling across the club’s terrace like Lazarus on parade. He came down the steps with a wave for the staring commodore and made a beeline for us.

Carly had control of her mouth by the time he reached us. I busied myself mopping beer off my legs with a napkin.

“Carly, Tess,” he said pleasantly, squatting down to our level with a nod for the closest group of members. They smiled uncertainly and turned away. “Is Deenie here?”

“What’s this sudden fascination with Deenie?” Carly demanded.

“We were supposed to meet at her place, but she didn’t answer the door,” I told him, ignoring Carly. “Why? What’s the matter?” His face had grown grave, and he stood abruptly. “Hal, wait!”

I scrambled to my feet, dropped the beer can, and sprinted after him. Carly called out, but I ignored her. Two peaceful days since my encounter in the tool shed had done nothing to calm my stripped nerves. Hal the Hermit arriving at a social occasion made my stomach lurch. Hal concerned for Deenie—

I caught him at the door of his silly car. We stared at each other, then he popped the passenger door open and ran around to the driver’s side.

The Durham house remained blank-eyed. Hal banged on the door, then reached up to the lintel to produce a key. His hand shook as he fitted it into the lock, twisted it savagely, and thrust the door open.

The smell of lemon polish enfolded us as we glanced into the living room. Sunlight poured through the open front curtains. A naval clock chimed the quarter hour.

“Those curtains were closed before,” I told Hal.

He hurried down the hallway, calling Deenie’s name. The house echoed as though it were deserted. I took a deep gulp of air and headed straight back through the house to the least likely place — the kitchen.

Deenie’s tousled head had fallen forward on the breakfast table. An empty bottle of gin teetered on the table’s edge. I felt under her delicate jaw for a pulse. It was so faint it took me a few panicky seconds to find it.

“Hal!” I called, easing Deenie back in the chair. Her face was talc-white and slack. “In the kitchen!”

He skidded around the doorway and hurried to my side. Gently raising one of the unconscious woman’s eyelids, he held her wrist and counted a full minute. “That’s not just booze,” he said grimly, reaching for the wall phone.

Deenie was so cold it frightened me. While Hal called the paramedics, I fetched a sweater from the hall closet. Hurrying into the kitchen with it, I discovered Mutt and Jeff entering the back door. Fast work — Hal must have signaled them somehow. I shot them a glare that should have brought on multiple coronaries and wrapped the sweater around Deenie. With all the subtle charm I was beginning to know and love, the two men barely gave her a glance before they began to nose around. Mutt lifted the gin bottle, using his shirttail, and sniffed before carefully replacing it on the table edge. Jeff retreated, and I heard the boards creak in the bedroom next door. Hal gave me a flat stare, then fetched an afghan for Deenie’s legs.

The charming twosome had plip-plopped away on their scooters by the time the medics arrived. They asked some quick questions, put the bottle into a bag for analysis, attached an I.V. to their patient’s arm, and trundled Deenie out the front door.

“She’ll have to be ’coptered to Boston,” the older of the two told me as they slid her into the ambulance. “Looks like a botched suicide — barbiturates. Zeke will be calling you.” They took off in a spurt of gravel.

“Suicide, my eye,” I said bitterly as Hal joined me. “Deenie Durham never had a suicidal thought in her selfish little life.”

He glanced down at me, startled.

“People like Deenie don’t kill themselves,” I said impatiently, turning back to his lemon. “If you were convinced you were the center of the universe, would you leave voluntarily?”

“I thought you were her friend,” Hal said, following me.

“I love Deenie like a sister,” I told him in surprise. “That doesn’t mean I don’t see her faults. And let her know about them, sometimes.” I slid onto the hot seat of the bug. “Personally, I’ve never felt like I was at the center of anything — except an occasional slanging match between Mama and Joe.”

“You were the center of your grandmother’s life. I’ve been meaning to—”

“We should call Sandy,” I changed the subject abruptly.

“Leave that to the medics.” Hal turned the ignition key. “I gave them his work number — for what it’s worth.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

Hal’s face was grim as he swung onto the road toward home. He flicked me a glance, but his set jaw gave forth no reply.

“Look, Hal,” I began, temper rising, “I’m getting pretty sick of wandering around inside your private funhouse without a script. I almost got shot the other morning, if you remember. Today one of my best friends may be dying. Isn’t it about time you let me in on the secret?”

“Can’t,” he stated. Discussion ended.

“Then I’ll have to call Zeke Beebe and tell him what’s been going on,” I replied.

“I’ll break your pretty neck,” Hal said, casual as how d’you do.

I could hear my teeth grinding. “I should have flicked that light switch,” I muttered.

His glance was amused. “It’s almost over, Tess.” He tried to pat my knee, but I jerked it away.

When we pulled into his driveway and the engine died, Hal turned to me. “Tess,” he said gently, resting one elbow on the wheel, “I promise no one else will get hurt.”

I started to tremble and could feel my throat tightening — with anger, I told myself “That’ll do Deenie a lot of good,” I gulped.

Hal came around to open my door. He pulled me up out of the car and held me close.

“How touching,” a dry voice said. I twisted out of Hal’s arms to find Jeff watching, arms akimbo. Behind him stood a gangly redheaded man in jeans and a tank top.

“Sandy!” I stared at Deenie’s husband, who should be in his Boston laboratory. “Where did you come from? Did they—”

“Zeke just called, Tess,” he said grimly, his eyes on Hal. “I was supposed to be trying to reach my dying wife, wasn’t I, Hal?”

A frown developed between Hal’s brows. “What are you talking about?”

“You gave the medics my lab number,” Sandy bit off the words, pale blue eyes flashing, “but security switched it to my cellular phone last week. I’ve been staying in your boathouse since yesterday afternoon.”

“We thought Mr. Durham might need to be... uh... mobile,” Jeff grinned, but his eyes stayed cold.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here, Sandy,” Hal said, running a hand through his hair. “The paramedics—”

“—think Deenie will make it,” Sandy interrupted. “You didn’t wait long enough for the drugs to work.”

“Did a better job on his own wife,” Jeff suggested.

The breeze off the harbor was cool, but not enough to give me that sudden sensation of freezing. “Hal couldn’t—” I croaked, then swallowed painfully. “His kids were killed! Sandy!”

“Sharon was supposed to leave the kids with the sitter, wasn’t she, Hal?” Sandy asked, his voice tight with suppressed anger. “You didn’t know she was leaving for good and taking them along.”

I turned slowly to look up at Hal. He was watching Sandy intently.

“Mrs. Benson called our office,” Jeff added, “before she left home. Said her husband might be hawking the lab’s programs. Sour grapes from a neglected wife, we thought. If you’d left her alone, we might never have given it a second thought. Pretty nasty people you were dealing with, professor. Why did they try to fry you the other day? Cutting their losses?”

Hal took a step backward, moving into the angle between the open passenger door and the car. His face still looked as though he were striving to understand a foreign language. I turned to speak to Sandy, to question, to demand, but a flash of movement brought me swinging toward Hal. A small gun had sprouted in his hand — and was aimed point-blank at my midriff. His eyes, however, were fixed on Jeff, who had gone rigid.

“You’re finally going to listen to me,” he spoke quietly. Let us reason together. “Who do you suppose planted those stupid suspicions in my wife’s mind? The same man who tampered with my car’s steering column, maybe? Killing Sharon wasn’t his plan, but it worked — it got me out of the lab. And once I was gone, he finally had access to all the data, not just the crumbs.”

Hal’s knuckles were white, and the gun was developing a decided tremble. I found I couldn’t swallow any more.

“You saying Mr. Durham went to all that trouble just to get you out of the way?” Jeff drawled, looking skeptical.

“You’d better go back to the shrinks,” Sandy blurted. “You’re paranoid. What would I have to—”

“Whose wife has been drinking like a fish and might let something damaging slip?” Hal was unrelenting. “Deenie’s had a long time to mull over Sharon’s accident. Did Sid’s death start her thinking some nasty things about you, Sandy? For instance, how did Sid get into your cabin?”

Jeff cocked his head and slanted a glance at the man beside him. “There was no—”

“He had a key.” Sandy looked defiant, like a child caught with a shattered piggybank. “I’ve already told them. We’d been having an affair. We met at the cabin sometimes. That’s why Deenie—” his voice choked off and he put a hand to his forehead.

Hal snorted. “You mean poor Deenie was so shocked she tried to kill herself?” he scoffed. “Amazing — since she told Sharon two years ago that she knew all about your so-called affairs. You’d be surprised what women tell each other. What was so different about this one with Sid? Or was Deenie just a bit nervous about how the kid died?”

“You’re wasting our time, professor,” Jeff interrupted. “We’ve been over all this—”

Hal ignored him. “How did Sid die, Sandy?” he demanded, voice thickening. “You wouldn’t dirty your own hands. Must have been the same punks you sent after me, right? Same bizarre sense of humor. I’ll bet it was a shock when you found out he died in your own cabin. But you still needed them to eliminate me, didn’t you, so your meal ticket would be safe? So you could have the house in the Berkshires and the cottage out here and diamonds to keep Deenie quiet — and the job you thought you deserved.”

Hal’s gun remained trained on me. Only a couple of feet separated us; I waited for it to waver by a millimeter.

“I think you should take a closer look at my old pal here,” Hal addressed Jeff again. “For instance, how’s he been financing the good life?”

Hal was so intent on convincing Jeff that, for a crucial instant, his grip on the gun slackened. I tensed my muscles for a leap and was glancing around for a place to dive when the look on Sandy’s face stopped me. In that instant, when he thought no one but Hal was looking, he was smirking, pale eyes alight with unholy glee. He looked — triumphant.

By the time Jeff turned toward him, Sandy’s freckled face showed only puzzlement and a sort of pity. “Investments,” Jeff was replying in a Sahara-tinged voice. “You’ve been away a long time, professor. It’s all been checked and doublechecked.”

Our friend Sandy turned his gaze to where I stood rooted, staring at him. He shook his head slightly, inviting me to share his distress at a fine mind gone round the bend. Abruptly my world righted itself and I wasn’t cold any more.

Mutt tiptoed around the corner of the house, approaching Jeff and Sandy from behind. Hal ignored him, and Jeff, who must have seen his colleague’s sneaking approach out of the corner of his eye, did the same. “Professor, give us one fact,” he said softly, “to choose between the pair of you.”

Carly’s Checker lurched down the sandy track and staggered to a halt at the end of Hal’s drive. She emerged with a waterfall of curious cats and strode toward us.

“I stopped by Deenie’s, but there was no one—” She noticed Deenie’s husband then. “Hi, Sandy,” she nodded casually at him while she stopped to remove a half-grown Abyssinian from her pants leg. “Boy, was I ever relieved to see you with Deenie this afternoon. She’s been driving me crazy with her whining. Is she here?”

The silence that greeted her was deafening. One of the older cats was exploring Sandy’s ankle and mewling to itself. He shoved it away impatiently. “I’ve been in the boathouse ever since I got here,” he said irritably.

At the club, I suddenly remembered, Carly had said Deenie might have stayed home with—

“Where did you see them?” I demanded, deciding to take a hand in this game. The men were making a mess of it.

“On the beach behind their house.” Carly, cuddling the angular feline under her chin, seemed to become aware of the tension for the first time. She stared at me, but my body blocked her view of Hal. “I was fishing off the point. What’s—”

“Must have been someone else,” Sandy insisted, kicking at the long-legged tom, who had developed a passion for his ankle.

“Oh, come on, Sandy.” Carly looked disgusted. “How many tall, red-headed men could be cuddling Deenie on her own beach? Just because my hair’s gray doesn’t mean I’ve gone blind.”

I turned to Jeff. “Was Sandy with you earlier this afternoon?”

Jeff shifted uncomfortably. “We’ve been tailing the professor. After the other morning—”

Red patches showed on Hal’s cheekbones and the gun really and truly shook now. “You’re slime, do you know that, Sandy?” He almost choked on the words. “This won’t be murder; it’ll be an execution.” He raised the gun in two hands, elbows braced to aim at his former friend.

Mutt and Jeff were playing statue, letting the two men have it out. Carly was too far away to intervene. I hesitated — remembering Hal lying bound on that shed floor and Deenie’s limp form in the ambulance — and folded my arms.

Sandy’s calm fled as he stared wild-eyed at Hal, then at the unmoving Jeff. “You can’t!” he squeaked. “They’ll kill you for it!”

“What do I have left to live for?” Hal demanded coldly. “Besides, I can plead insanity, can’t I? Thanks to you.”

“I didn’t mean to kill the kids,” Sandy babbled, freckles standing stark against his paling cheeks. “Deenie didn’t tell me Sharon was going to drive your car. I never meant to hurt them!”

Mutt broke his pose and took a step forward, but Sandy, sensing the movement, dodged sideways before Jeff could react. Hal swung the gun to follow his target and bashed me in the collarbone, sending me reeling against the lemon bug. Cursing, Hal tried to correct his aim, but by then Mutt and Jeff were only steps behind the fleeing man as he sprinted down the driveway toward Carly and the open door of her sedan.

Carly sidestepped to avoid Sandy’s rush, the limp Abyssinian raised high above her head out of harm’s way — and dropped the startled cat on Sandy’s back as he dashed by. Screaming like a banshee, the terrified animal scrambled for purchase on the running man’s bare neck and shoulders. Exposed skin around his tank top was shredded by needlelike claws as Sandy doubled over, yelling and swiping at his attacker. The cat, naturally, bit him, which brought an additional howl of rage. As Jeff drew level and grabbed Sandy’s arm, the young feline, ears flattened, dug his claws into Sandy’s back muscles, launched himself to the safety of the ground, and scampered off to join his companions, tail stiff with outrage.

Jeff jerked both Sandy’s arms up behind him while Mutt puffed to a halt and produced handcuffs. Sandy, still squirming, shot Hal a murderous look.

“I should have known. You wouldn’t have had the nerve to shoot,” he spat.

“I almost did.” Hal sounded infinitely tired. “You’re a destroyer, Sandy. My family, Sid — even your own wife, just to save your own skin.” He dropped the gun in the sand of the driveway and stared at his betrayer. “You’re only breathing now because I want to know you’re alive a long, long time — staring at four walls.”

“I think we can guarantee that now,” Mutt agreed. “Come on, buster.” They frog-marched Sandy toward the boathouse, probably to call for backup. They certainly needed all they could get.

Hal, Carly, the cats, and I retired to Hal’s dining room. The cats had cream. While we drank something stronger, I told Carly, in choppy sentences, the events that led up to Sandy’s downfall. When pressed, Hal admitted that the scene we’d witnessed was staged by the terrible twosome at Hal’s insistence. Sandy’s “investments” had turned out to be some dry oil wells that paid a surprisingly healthy return, but security wanted hard evidence that would place him squarely at the heart of at least one of the murders. The three conspirators were caught off guard and forced to improvise pretty briskly, he added, once Carly and I poked our noses in.

As we finally bade him goodbye, Hal thanked us for helping with “his problem.”

“What are neighbors for?” was Carly’s reply.

Human lives are at least as delicate as antique lace, but are not so simple to repair.

Hal left the next day for the lab. Someone had to run the place. Eventually Sandy pleaded guilty to all charges. He’ll be staring at those four walls the rest of his life. Carly heard from Deenie when she got out of the hospital. Even with his illegal earnings, Sandy had lived well beyond his income; Deenie was selling the Berkshire, Cape, and Newton houses and planned to travel to Europe to forget. I sent her a note with Mama’s address in Cannes. They’ll get on like a house afire.

There’s a nip of autumn in the air now. Gran’s house is repaired, and I’ve been settling in to brave the winter alone here on the jester’s foot, just me and pages and pages of Perkin. Yesterday Uncle Ernando started weatherproofing the Benson house. He told me Hal has found a successor at the lab and will be arriving in a few weeks.

It looks as though I’ll have a neighbor for the long cold winter.